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The Part of Your World Dramatization

I don’t know what draws kids and animals to me. I’m like a magnet to everything in diapers and/or covered in fur. Maybe I smell like cat food and cookies or cat food cookies. I’ve been told a number of times that my voice sounds like a cartoon character on TV. When I’m at the mall gathering my kids, sometimes I get extra like I’m coralling a preschool group together. Parents have apologized to me when their kids follow mine but I don’t mind. With my three kids I’m my own playgroup.

So it’s no wonder that I went into education. I get requested a lot and I don’t mind so that tends to give me a big head and I often go into a class thinking the day will be a piece of cake.

And it usually is.

But man, oh man, when I have a terrible day, it’s because I ran into the one hundredth percent of teenagers that give their age group a bad name.

I have nothing negative to report in this post however.

In one class, a teacher came by to tell me that a student had to leave a half an hour early. Later I asked the student if he was on the track team as other kids on the track team were leaving early as well.

“No,” he replied. “I volunteer at the local elementary school and tutor foster kids because I used to be one and I know what it’s like for them.”

I am embarassed to say that I said, “Awww!” aloud. But I was so impressed, so proud of this kid who wasn’t mine biologically but as a mom and teacher many of us begin to think of all kids as “OURS”.

I jokingly said, “Wow, kids like you make it hard for me to hate teenagers.” We laughed but he really made me think about what kids go through today. As if it weren’t that we as adults have enough to go through with peer conflicts and family turmoil, can you imagine having to deal with that as a teenager? As a child?

Last week I subbed for a friend’s sixth grade class and had the honor of watching their school’s production of “The Little Mermaid”. She had warned me that theirs rivals high school productions.

She was wrong. Their production blew away any high school production I had ever seen out of the water.

For privacy reasons I cannot post pictures of videos but I was mouthing the words, got goosebumps regularly, and even teared up once or twice. (Okay, twice). The kids were amazing! The costumes were handmade by a teacher and a couple of mothers. I loved every moment.